Saturday, October 24, 2009

E-Le@rning II

Part A
What are some characteristics of digital natives?

POOR
- They have a short attention span…. when taught in a traditional manner.

- They are poor at reflecting and critical thinking.

GOOD
- They have Enhanced thinking skills by repeated exposure to computer games and other digital media.

Which portrait did you select? (In your blog, create a link to the portrait.) In terms of their digital background, how similar was that student compared to a Singapore student?

I have selected Dana. In terms of her digital background, I believe that students in Singapore are also exposed to most of the gadgets that Dana are exposed to in the States. The only difference would be that Dana is lucky to have parent's that endorses and encourages the use of IT. Students in Singapore generally do not receive positive support from parents with regards to the use of IT.

How might teachers in Singapore today engage and teach our digital natives?

Teachers should encourage students to make use of the vast information available online. Encouragement alone is not enough. After acquiring whatever knowledge that the students might be looking for, they must know that the information needs corroboration.



Part B

As you look into the possible future of the educational landscape, what sort of impressions, fears, or possibilities crossed your mind?
My impression is that teachers would have more time dealing with the more important aspect of education which is not to teach Math or Science or History but to teach a child. What I mean is in Singapore a lot more focus is currently put into character development of children and citizenship or national education. I guess the government is now more aware that the younger generation of Singaporeans are lacking in character due to the over-emphasis on academics excellence alone. My fear would be that the future Singapore would be very impersonal due to increasing usage of ICT.

What might living, learning and working be like in the future?
The playing ground would get much more even. Individuals who are not tech-savvy would lag behind their peers.

How is NIE preparing you to prepare your students for this possible future?
I think it is impossible for NIE to prepare us with the hardware as technology changes very so often that whatever is taught today might be obsolete when we start teaching. However what is taught here that could prepare us for this possibility is the awareness that is being instilled. I find this experience meaningful as it makes me face these tough questions and challenges. This will definitely help me prepare my mind for the possibility of me constantly having to change as technology progresses. I feel that this readiness and willingness and preparedness to constantly upgrade our teaching strategies is the first step in welcoming the challenges of the future.

E-Learning II

Part A: Digital Natives

What are some characteristics of digital natives?

- Always online be it on Facebook, Messenger or even Youtube.
- Always creating new content to share with others
- Always sharing new information through blogs, tweets and Youtube
- Multitasking most of the time

What are digital natives good at?
- Good processing habits
- Not just passive users; they want to create better technology and overcome barriers
- They have good collaborative learning style
- Interact vastly with different people even overcoming language and physical barriers
- A community of sharing; they like to share information

What are digital natives poor at?

- They disclose too much about their personal data
- They have very bad attention span for any traditional modes of teaching; “Every time I go to school I have to power down,” complains a digital native student.

Which portrait did you select? (In your blog, create a link to the portrait.) In terms of their digital background, how similar was that student compared to a Singapore student?
I've picked Jalen. Jalen is an artist, animator, and digital-media creator. He has been dabbling in amination for about 2 years and he attends classes on how to produce his own movies and comic characters on his laptop. This is very similar to his Singaporean counterpart where the children here are exposed to various courses on animation in schools and the government is encouraging students to get involved in competitions like NEMATION.

How might teachers in Singapore today engage and teach our digital natives?
As new platforms and devices emerge, how we as teachers use the different modes of ICT tools must undergo a process of evolution. After all, the students live in a new digital age, like keeping in touch via Facebook and updating themselves in blogs. We have a task to equip students with the critical skills to engage in the emergent digital media landscape and understand what it means to be literate in an interconnected planet thus the traditional way of teaching is not always the right way to teach.

Part B: The Digital Native's Future

As you look into the possible future of the educational landscape, what sort of impressions, fears, or possibilities crossed your mind?
I expect that the students of the future would have a better understanding of their academics and find that all the answers they need would be at their fingertips and they understand that there is always a resource out there that they can use. My only fear is that teachers would not be fully equipped to guide these students and they may lose interest in schools.

What might living, learning and working be like in the future?

Things would be so much easier. We would be able to obtain information faster and there would be a whole new level of expectations that we would be living in.

How is NIE preparing you to prepare your students for this possible future? How might you prepare yourself?
I have been exposed to different ICT tools to scaffold my understanding of what is expected of me as a teacher to guide my students along to this future. And I have always been told that there is always help for me in case I encounter any problems. Instead of just teaching these tools I could always keep learning how the tools can help me and my students.

Monday, October 19, 2009

E Learning 2

Part A: Digital Natives

3. Answer these questions in your blog

What are some characteristics of digital natives? (What are they good at? What are they poor at?)

Digital natives(+):

  • Develop hypertext minds
  • Have parallel cognitive structures rather than sequential ones
  • Have a combination and intensified different cognitive skills such as multidimensional visual spatial skills
  • Prefer interactivity
  • Accustomed to twitch speed multi-tasking , random access (of video games)
  • Raised in a technological environment

(-)

  • Short attention span


Which portrait did you select? (In your blog, create a link to the portrait.) In terms of their digital background, how similar was that student compared to a Singapore student?

I chose Dana. Dana is a nine year old child being adopted by American parents. She was from Kazakhstan. She is a young gamer and helped to build a new website for needy Haitians. Similar to nine year old Singaporeans, she is being surrounded by common technological devices such as MP3s, computers, PSPs and mobile phones. Like Dana, they are more digitally native at home than school. At home, they spend a lot of their time playing computer games, texting messages and surfing the internet. Also like any other children, she has a 'non-tech' hobby, that is singing. In addition, she has her own ambition. She wants to be a veterinian.


How might teachers in Singapore today engage and teach our digital natives?

First of all, teachers can use the many devices that are already being used by our digital natives. This will make learning fun, interactive and authentic for them. To engage and teach digital natives, we have to consider several characteristics of digital natives. For them, learning hardly takes place if teachers use the old school (reading and memorising) way of teaching. Since they prefer interactivity, conducting games-based learning sessions is a good way get them involved and learn actively.

Part B: The Digital Native's Future


5. Answer these questions in your blog


As you look into the possible future of the educational landscape, what sort of impressions, fears, or possibilities crossed your mind?

Questions that came across my mind after watching the videos include 'Are teachers still relevant in the future?'/'How does one define smart/intelligent in the year 2015?/'Do examanations (paper and pen kind) still apply?'


What might living, learning and working be like in the future?

  • Living in the future is going to be very convenient as dependence on technology is much higher. Hopefully our quality of living improves. Presently, the standard of living in Singapore is rather high but the quality of living is still questionable.
  • Learning and working should be more dynamic than ever. Students have to keep learning new things and absorb so much of information. (What they have learnt yesterday can be outdated the next day). Through new tech devices the students learn more actively. Teachers teach less. / Workers have to constantly upgrade themselves if they want to remain in the workforce. They are required to upgrade much more frequently. There is going to be so much competition. The challenges faced by future learners and workers is going to be more complex and definitely different from ours.


How is NIE preparing you to prepare your students for this possible future? How might you prepare yourself?

One of the ways in preparing is through ICT. Some of the sessions in ICT explore into the many possibilities of how lessons can be conducted in the future using high tech devices. Some of the ideas are really new to me. Hence in order to prepare myself, I have to familiarise myself with the possibilities and embrace them.

Friday, October 16, 2009

E-Learning 2

3. Answer these questions in your blog

•What are some characteristics of digital natives? (What are they good at? What are they poor at?)

Characteristic

- hypertext mind
- multidimensional visual-spatial skills
- attentional deployment
- responding faster to expected and unexpected stimuli
- mental maps
- representational competence
- inductive discovery

Strength

- able to use the knowledge they get from playing games in their daily life; learn from experience.
- are able to multitask

Weakness

- short attention spans for the old ways of learning

•Which portrait did you select? (In your blog, create a link to the portrait.) In terms of their digital background, how similar was that student compared to a Singapore student?

I selected the potrait of Virginia. I believed that at the age of 14 years old, the students of Singapore are more exposed to the digital technology. This is because, I suppose that there are students younger than the age of 12 years old that are blogging.

Viginia and Singapore students are familiar due to the fact that they are more engage when dealing with digital media. They are also being introduced to these digital media at a young age since their parents or those who are older than them are using it. Kids at these age will get curious and would want to explore the technology on their own. Hence, the similar background.

•How might teachers in Singapore today engage and teach our digital natives?

The need to use more of digital teachnology in their teaching to engage the students. This includes digital games that will attract the attention of the digital natives. These digital games must be of the correct design so that kids are learning the correct things.


5. Answer these questions in your blog

•As you look into the possible future of the educational landscape, what sort of impressions, fears, or possibilities crossed your mind?

I was truly awed by the Singapore's iN2015 vision video. The wonder of technology. Yes, of course there are some fears that I have in mind. Am I able to catch up with the technology in years to come? Will I be one of the outdated Singaporean who refused to accept the new technology?

•What might living, learning and working be like in the future?

I think that technology plays a huge part in the future. Who knows that paper might not even exist in the future... ;)

Anyway, I forsee that working in the future would be less taxing as I believe that information regarding work will be stored digitally and retrieving the information wouldn't be much of a problem.

Learning will be a fun for the students as there will definitely be less of classroom teaching and more of independent learning using technology.

•How is NIE preparing you to prepare your students for this possible future? How might you prepare yourself?

So far, we are encourage to use different media tools for our presentation. This will prompt us to get our creative mind to use. By getting us exposed to the media technology that the students are using or going to be using, it will get us prepared for the future.

On our part, we have to constantly keep updated with the latest technology that the students might get interested with. We must not be narrow-minded and think that only the traditional way of teaching works. Also, I believe in having to experience the technology itself for us to know how it work. Hence, we must also be curious in trying new media technology, just like how the students will get curious with it.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Reflection

3 things I learnt
- Difference between a GOOD objective and a Bad objective
- What to look at when analyzing learners.
- We must integrate our ICT into our lesson and not our lesson into ICT. (The main focus/emphasis must be the lesson itself)


2 things I applied
- ABCD model in setting a GOOD objective
- CL as we critique other teams Lesson Plan.

1 thing I want to know about
- Making a lesson plan is already a tough task. The next thing that I would like to know is how to execute the lesson plan itself. A lesson plan is but just a lesson plan until we execute it.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Reflection 3-2-1

•3 things you learned
I learnt about lesson planning procedures...
1) Identify the learners
~get to know their background, IT skill, gender, Economics status, Learning style etc...

2) Write up the goals and objectives
Realised how difficult it is to write an objective... so all this while I have been writing it wrong...hmmm...wonder why noone point out to me...or could it be possible that they are as ignorant as me... ; )
Now I'm not ignorant anymore just need more practise... A-Audience B-Behaviour C-Conditions D-Degree...
But D is also stands for Definately Difficult to Define...hehe..

3) Plan for the activities which integrates the use of ICT... Dr Tan says we focus on the activity first then find the suitable ICT...

•2 things applied
1) We planned for the lesson and chose the topic but it was challenging.. Never thought that teaching language will be like this...Make the lesson Authentic... Dr Tan said...
and thanks to his great scaffolding stategy... We manage to finalise on the lesson plan idea... implemented SL and CL into the lesson plan...

2) Then came the SIO... It was so complicated... ABCs they were fine but when it came to D... phew... so Difficult... then Dr Tan to the resque again... that's how we finally though of using template and rubrics in our lesson plan... then tried to consolidate everything but there was not enough time... hah... time .. it is always short when you are starting to enjoy doing something...

•1 thing you want to know more about
hmmm... I think for now I don't know what I want to know... I just need to complete my SeSSion X as soon as possible... so maybe what I want is to know if we are on the right track...
So I can celebrate Hari Raya with a peace of mind... Ahhh...

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Reflection

It's time for reflection!

3 things you learn
- How to write a good objectives.
It must include Audience, Behaviour, Condition & Degree.

- Create lesson plan that includes ICT in it.
The steps involved for the process ofc creating a lesson plan

- Critique our classmate's lesson plan.
This way, we are able to learn from their mistake and input on what we know.

2 things you applied
- The theories of creating a lesson plan taught by Dr Tan is being applied when we are asked to create a lesson plan.

- From the knowledge that I gather, I applied what I know by havin criticizing other group's work.

1 thing you want to know about
- How I can integrate games(WII) into the curriculum.



Done...deee..done...!